


Turn Your Eyes to Hope from Despair

by Rachel_Lu



Series: Comissions [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Picks up at episode 10 of the despair arc, So this is like... NOT canon compliant, because She deserved better, commission, is not canon compliant from that point on, saving Chisa from despair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachel_Lu/pseuds/Rachel_Lu
Summary: “You think my students are filled with Enoshima’s despair?”  Chisa narrowed her eyes at him.  He was getting far too close, and she had no way out and no way to defend herself.  The only thing she could do was move forward and hope he wouldn’t think that she was one of them as well."I suspect it.”  Kyosuke sighed heavily, and approached Chisa.  He cupped her cheek in his hand, looking down at her with a forlorn expression.  “Yukizome, I do hope you’ll forgive me, in the end.”
Series: Comissions [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750255
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Turn Your Eyes to Hope from Despair

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commission piece to save our sweet Miss Chisa from despair! It picks up pretty much right as Chisa is turned to despair, and it literally doesn't follow canon at all- it's a complete fix it, so if you try to follow it along with the actual canon anime you will probably hurt your brain.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

The air felt heavy in her lungs. She was awake, but couldn’t find it within herself to open her eyes. Her past felt like a blur, something passing in front of her face that she could reach out but not quite touch. Feeling thoughts, wondering where her students were. Where she was. But none of these thoughts had any emotion behind them; it was almost as if she was reading someone else’s mind, and therefore had no opinion on anything she was hearing. But she could feel certain things. 

She could feel the weight in her stomach of oncoming dread.

The odd feeling of giddiness at the idea of her students committing heinous crimes outside. 

Oh,  _ yes.  _ The utter completeness of the feeling of  _ despair. _

It washed over her, covered her body and filled her mind. She found herself not caring about… Anyone. Anything. Nothing existed except the desire to funnel despair into the world, sending it out until there was nothing left. A crooked smile crossed her lips at the thought.

Her name… Who was she?

Ah, yes. Chisa Yukizome. She opened sore, heavy eyes to stare in front of her. She remembered Mukuro Ikusaba standing behind her, probing at her brain, but now there was no one. She noted that her restraints were gone as well, though she was still sitting upright in the chair that she’d been in before. 

A door opened and closed behind her, and Mukuro came in cautiously, peering at Chisa with wary eyes.

“How are you feeling?” She asked calmly.

Chisa said nothing. What could one say when despair crushed so heavily on one’s soul? As horrible as it was, as agonizing as it was, she almost felt more alive because of it. She also realized, in that moment, that she had no idea where Kyosuke was. And that thought crushed her as well, in the most delightful way.

“No answer?” Mukuro asked, a few moments later. She heaved a sigh, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, I suppose that’s a good thing. If you’re not fighting back, you must be joining us, right?”

“Yes,” Chisa found herself saying quickly. “Why would I not be with you?”

Mukuro’s lip quirked ever so slightly. “Good. I’ve got your first job for you.”

“Do you want me to fight?”

“No.” Mukuro levelled her gaze, leaning back on her heels. “That pesky class rep of yours. She won’t keep her nose out of our business, and she’s all over where she doesn’t belong.”

Chisa furrowed her brows. “Chiaki?”  
“Correct.”

“You want me to kill her?”

“No, you don’t have to do any of that. We’ll handle it… But for now, there’s a few things that we need you to do to make sure our plan is a success.”

***********

It was almost alarming, how excited Chisa was to begin. Mukuro had calmly explained the entire plan to her, what Chiaki’s fate would be, and the role that Chisa was to play. Chiaki trusted her, after all. 

And yet… Even though Chisa wanted to do it, and wanted to complete the task, something about it felt… Wrong. Like she was choosing the wrong path, somehow. But this was the only path, wasn’t it? The path to despair, to complete Junko’s video. After the students watched it… They could all be together again. Then it wouldn’t matter so much that Chiaki wasn’t there. 

Later, when she shoved Chiaki into the elevator and prepared to press the button that would seal her fate, Chiaki’s voice calling out made her stop.

“Sensei? They… Got to you, didn’t they?”

Chiaki’s voice was forlorn, close enough to despair that Chisa heard it, brought it close to herself. Her eyes snapped to the girl, laying sprawled on the elevator.

_ It had to be you. _

Chisa’s eye twitched. “Nothing has happened that I don’t want for myself,” She said smoothly, smiling in what she hoped Chiaki would see as a kind and reassuring manner. She wasn’t sure she actually knew how to do it anymore. 

Chiaki’s dull eyes held panic. “It’s not… It’s not you. I don’t know you.”

Chisa felt a very strange part of herself wish that she could reach out to Chiaki. She furrowed her brow, unused to the feeling. “Nanami, as your teacher, I’m going to have to ask you to follow instructions.”

Chiaki’s brows drew together, and Chisa felt her heart swell. Despair. Her beloved class rep would fall into so much despair, sending her classmates down with her as well. Junko’s plan would be nearly complete. Nothing would ever be the same again. 

Chiaki opened her mouth to speak, but Chisa slammed the door to the elevator, and pushed the button to send her student into the trap below.   
She turned around, shaking with a sort of glee that was completely unmatched. Her hands shook at her sides. The same hands that had just sent Chiaki to her death. It was easy to do, almost too easy. She knew what Junko had planned for Chiaki below, and she also knew that she wouldn’t make it out alive. With careful steps, she retreated from the hallway, the adrenaline high of what she had done already running out. She felt the need to fill it with something else, more despair. Something disgusting. She could find something disgusting to do. 

Izuru Kamukura broke her out of her train of thought as he rounded the corner and approached her in the hallway. 

“Ah… Yukizome.” He sounded as disinterested as ever. Chisa pursed her lips. She knew this boy from before, but since his memories were wiped, it would be best not to say anything to remind him of who he had been. 

“Kamukura,” she dipped her head. “Have you been sent here?”

“No,” he cocked his head to the side, eyes lazily tilted up as though he were listening for something. “I feel as though I was brought here by my mind, though.”

“A foolish thought,” Chisa scoffed, waving her hand. She brushed past him, flicking her hand at him in a dismissive fashion as she walked by. “There is nothing for you here, Kamukura! I promise you that. Nothing for me, either.”

“How boring,” she heard Kamukura murmur from behind her as she walked away. She breathed out a sigh of relief. Her first task, complete.

*****

Going to see Kyosuke was next on her list. She still had to keep up appearances, and keeping up her appearance with Kyosuke was the most important of all. She’d been so affectionate with him before that it would be strange if she suddenly wasn’t. And if she wasn’t mistaken, he was quite fond of her as well.

She opened the door to the room without knocking, peeking around the door. Kyosuke was standing, staring out the window. He seemed to be thinking deeply. She approached him quickly, running to his side and wrapping her arms around his waist. He let out a grunt on impact and wrapped his arms around her as well, though far more tentatively.

“Yukizome, are you all right?” He asked, attempting to pull her back by the shoulders to look her in the eyes. She wouldn’t let him, tucking her face further into his chest. 

“Yes, I’m fine,” She said, letting out a long sigh.

He breathed out a sigh of his own, one of relief. “I’m very glad that you’re not in trouble. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to find you sooner. And it seems you’ve found me, instead.”

She laughed, pulling back from him and walking to the other side of the room. She refused to look at him, opting to keep her back to him. “I did.”  
“I have a question for you, Yukizome.”

She froze. “Oh?”

“I haven’t seen you in awhile. You’ve been outside more than I have. So I’d like to ask you about our… Current situation.”

“What about it?” Chisa glanced curiously over her shoulder. Could it be that he wanted to join her in despair? Saying yes wouldn’t bring her despair, though, so what would her answer be? She chewed on her bottom lip uncertainly, almost missing Kyosuke’s actual question, so lost in her own thoughts was she.

“What do you think of Junko Enoshima?”

His voice cut through her. It sounded cold, and he sounded incredibly serious. Did he suspect her?

Oh. Well this wasn’t the question she had been hoping for at all. She swallowed hard, and turned to face Kyosuke completely. She smiled sweetly, her head cocked to the side. “Junko Enoshima? Well, if she was one of my students, she certainly wouldn’t have turned out this way!” She laughed softly, clasping her hands behind her back. “A girl like her is simply lost, and if she’d had a bit more guidance-”

“-I see,” Kyosuke said, cutting her off. “So you are… With us?” 

“Of course! Kyosuke, how could you think I could be anywhere else?” Chisa rested a delicate hand on her collarbone, feigning offense. 

Kyosuke stuffed his hands in his pockets, and stared at her for a moment. “I… Suppose that it never hurts to be careful.” He headed to the table, and picked up a candlestick that remained unlit on top of it. “Naegi is a bit too trusting for his own good. I suppose I have to be on the other side of that.”

“Naegi is young.”

“Mm. So are we. Either way, it’s hard to say who is with who anymore. Your students, for one. 77-B could be cause for a lot of trouble.”

“You think my students are filled with Enoshima’s despair?” Chisa narrowed her eyes at him. He was getting far too close, and she had no way out and no way to defend herself. The only thing she could do was move forward and hope he wouldn’t think that she was one of them as well.

“I suspect it.” Kyosuke sighed heavily, and approached Chisa. He cupped her cheek in his hand, looking down at her with a forlorn expression. “Yukizome, I do hope you’ll forgive me, in the end.”

Before she could say anything, he’d moved his hand, whacking her upside the head with the candlestick. She felt him catch her as the world faded to black, despair washing over her for still trusting him, and at herself for not moving quite fast enough.

*****

Time passed. She wasn’t sure how much. She wasn’t sure if any of it meant anything. She was awake part of the time, opening her eyes to catch glimpses of white walls and feeling a twinge in her arm. She would only see things for a moment before the world faded out again. She saw Junko in her dreams, vivid and furious with her for not being able to complete the task she’d been assigned.   
Chisa wanted to apologize, to offer herself up to Junko to kill her however she pleased, but she couldn’t make her dream-self speak. Junko screamed at her, berated her. The dreams were colored red, and Chisa wished it were different. In what way, she didn't know. Just _different._

It was horrible. It settled in her gut, despair and something else warring deep within her. What  _ was  _ it? She couldn’t remember anything that wasn’t despair, not anymore. 

She felt herself fully awaken to see Makoto Naegi standing at the foot of the bed she occupied, his hands dangling at his sides as though he wasn’t sure quite what to do with them.

“Don’t try to talk. You’ve been asleep for awhile.” Naegi leaned back against the wall. “You’re with the Future Foundation. You are being rehabilitated. Chisa Yukizome, all you need to know is that the world is no longer in despair and Kyosuke cared enough about you to save you instead of kill you, like he probably should have. Have you been having dreams? Yes or no?”

Chisa nodded her head, suddenly afraid to use her voice.

“Good. Um. Are they about Junko Enoshima?”

Chisa nodded again. 

Makoto sighed heavily. “I was worried that would be the case. We’ve brought in some people who may be able to help you. Do you think you can sit up?”

Chisa nodded, and was surprised when Makoto came to her side and helped her to adjust what she realized now was a hospital bed. Once she was comfortably sitting up, Makoto spoke again.

“We want to rehabilitate you. But you need to know that you are responsible, indirectly or directly, it doesn’t really matter at this point, for many deaths. If you cannot be rehabilitated, you will be put in prison. Do you understand?” 

Chisa nodded, the gravity of the situation settling on her shoulders and weighing her down. This was also a feeling of despair, surely, but… It didn’t feel like it had before. Something was different. Something was wrong. 

“Good. Come in,” Makoto called, taking a seat at the side of the room.

Entering the room was the last person Chisa had decided to see. Chiaki Nanami entered what she could only assume was her hospital room, with a slight limp and one eye milky with blindness. She was covered in scars, and who entered behind her was even more surprising. 

Hajime Hinata. Not Izuru Kamukura. He was most certainly Hajime, with one green eye and one red, following behind Chiaki in an almost doting manner. 

“We heard you would be waking up soon, sensei,” Chiaki said as Hajime pulled out a chair for her to sit in. “Some of the others from the class will be here soon.”

“Nanami, you don’t have to address her formally,” Makoto said from the other side of the room. 

Chiaki lifted a shoulder. “She’s still my teacher, I want to be respectful.”

Chisa opened her mouth to try to speak, and found her mouth incredibly dry. “I… How are you alive?”

“Hajime found me in Junko’s trap.”

“The run in I had with you when I was Izuru had made me feel strange,” Hajime confessed. “It was enough to shake me up enough to not let someone die in front of me, I guess.”

Chiaki opened her mouth to speak again, but the rest of class 77-B tumbled in at that point, looking a little worse for wear, Fuyuhiko missing an eye, but all of them together and  _ loud.  _ Upon seeing Chisa, Ibuki shoved her fists in the air.

“Yukizome-sensei! Ibuki is very pleased that you’re not dead!”

Chisa blinked. Had they failed? If Chiaki didn’t die in Junko’s trap, had the rest of the students not fallen to despair? She felt her heart sink. It had all been for nothing. She did her part, but Izuru just couldn’t have let her  _ die?  _

Aside from looking a bit older, more wiser, she supposed, her students seemed the same. They were the way she remembered them. Her mind warred with her, and the continued talking over each other. She decided just to watch them, for a moment. Kazuichi seemed to be picking a fight with Tanaka, only to be smacked upside the head by Sonia, who scolded them both for behaving poorly in front of their teacher. Nagito slung an arm around a very reluctant Hajime’s shoulders, mumbling something to him and Chiaki. Hiyoko and Fuyuhiko had begun bickering as well, and as Peko pulled Fuyuhiko towards the side of the room where Makoto was sitting, Mahiru tugged Hiyoko in the opposite direction. 

Ibuki squeezed Mikan into a huge bear hug. 

Some of them were quieter, not seeming to feel the need to talk loudly, or at all. But Chisa felt an odd swelling in her chest at the sight. She fought with it, tried to shove it down. What was it? How could she stop it?

“You were really resilient,” Makoto said to Chisa softly, his sweet tone undercutting the shouting from her students. “We found that out later. It was really hard to get you to fall to despair at all. So you… Out of anyone here, you should have the most hope for yourself. Until then, though… We’ll do the hoping for you.”

“You’re all being really loud!” Hajime shouted finally. “You’re going to make her head explode!” 

Ibuki tackled Hajime in retaliation, and Chiaki and Nagito both laughed at their antics, but the class did quiet down a bit.

“We want you to be happy, sensei,” Sonia said, stepping forward and bowing deeply. “We are much happier now. There’s something to be for hope!” 

Chisa wanted to smile. But she couldn’t. THe fact that she wanted to, though… Said something about her, she supposed. The despair reared its head in her, telling her that she should shake off the fledgling hope and try to carry on Junko’s legacy. 

But… She was tired. Her students looked so happy, despite the way the war they had clearly been involved in had battered and bruised them. SHe watched them, listened to them tell her stories, and not once did she find it annoying. She wondered if this was how she had felt before. 

After about an hour, Makoto shooed out all of the class except for Hajime and Chiaki. 

“We have a couple more guests for you, and then we’ll have to put you back into a medical coma. We’re hoping for more positive responses in your dreams,” Makoto said softly. 

As her students disappeared, Kyosuke and Juzo entered the room. Kyosuke bowed upon entering.

“Yukizome, my sincerest apologies for hitting you in the head with a candlestick. I was not sure how else to get you to come with me to find help for you and I didn’t want to kill you.”

Oh… Kyosuke. She remembered liking him a lot. Before she had tried to manipulate him, she had just wanted to spend more time with him. She felt a bit like that now.

“You hit her in the head with a candlestick?” Hajime said worriedly, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two.

“Yes.”

“Yukizome, I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Juzo, I-”

“I remember you,” Chisa said softly, her throat scratchy.

Once they stopped feeling so awkward around her, they all sat around her bed, either talking to her or around her. She tried to speak, but Makoto told her not to force it if she could help it. So she nodded, and just listened. She listened to how the Future Foundation was doing their best to repair the world, how Makoto’s sister had been endangered. 

It was a more... mature conversation, then what had happened with her students. They spoke levelly, honestly. They spoke of wanting to help people, of rebuilding the world and putting things back the way they were supposed to be. Hajime and Makoto spoke the most, she realized. 

Although she sort of wondered, she was afraid to ask how long she had been asleep. She decided that for now, she didn’t want to know. There was too much newness going through her mind to think about anything else. 

Juzo and Makoto were engaging in a surprisingly lively discussion about office goings-on when Chiaki tapped Chisa softly on the wrist. 

“Are you okay?” She asked softly. 

Chisa furrowed her brows. “Why do you care?”

Chiaki started a little, but didn’t back down. “I… I know what it’s like, to get nervous around a lot of people. I just want you to know that we’ll leave, if you ask us to.”

Hajime was listening in as well, and at Chiaki’s words, he nodded to Chisa. “We want you to feel better, and sometimes you might want to be alone. I did, when I first got my memories back. I didn’t let anyone come near me.”

“I was in the hospital for… Well…” Chiaki looked down at the scars that littered her legs. “I’ll probably never walk right again. But that’s okay! Sitting down is my favorite anyway.”

Hajime let out a soft chuckle at that.

Kyosuke looked over at Chisa from his spot next to her bed, on the other side from Hajime and Chiaki. 

“We can… Call it a day, if you’d like,” he said softly.

Chisa looked around at all the faces around her. Two students who worked very hard, future foundation members… The man she trusted the most… It all fought in her, and she wanted to throw up just to get the feelings out of her. 

There were many unknowns. She wasn’t sure what the point of anything was. She wasn’t sure if she would be  _ able  _ to get better the way that they were asking her to. But they were all looking at her, and even Juzo, with his rough demeanor and short temper, leaned forward with an earnest expression of concern on his face. His hands were laced together in front of him, elbows braced on his knees, and his brows drawn together. Makoto looked less worried, but there was a caring in his eyes that she hadn’t expected, and wasn’t sure that she deserved.

He’d said it himself. She’d caused deaths. 

She felt something went hit the back of her hand, and she looked up, wondering if the roof was leaking. Kyosuke wrapped her hand up in both of his. 

“It’s okay,” he said soothingly. 

Chisa reached up with her free hand, shakily touching her cheek. Could it be? She was crying? Why was she crying? She didn’t necessarily feel sad… But looking around at all the worried faces staring back at her, she wondered if she should be. 

“I’m… okay,” She said carefully. “I’m… Sorry… I don’t understand what’s happening… But I want to try.”

Juzo nodded, satisfied with her words. “I think trying is an excellent start, Yukizome. Welcome back.”

Welcome back where? Where was she? Where would she be later? She wasn’t sure she could answer any of those questions. She could still feel Junko’s grip on her spine. And for the first time since she’d fallen… She thought that maybe she wanted Junko to let go of her, so she could be free. So she could feel hope again.

Kyosuke squeezed her hand gently. Chisa glanced at him, then at the others, all staring at her with wide, earnest eyes. She looked back at Kyosuke. 

She smiled, just a little.

She squeezed back.


End file.
